Dishwashers are inconsistent in their spray patterns and may leave soap inside the bottle. this is further dried on in the high heat cycle and may not be so easily removed with the star san soak.
You may be over thinking it.
Try just a soak in oxyclean free and the store upside down untill you sanitize them.
30 seconds is fine at proper dilution rates and you should fill when wet.

Advice taken. The spigot will be coming apart now every time. But......if the flavor was from an infection would it mellow out with time? Whatever this off flavor is, it definitely mellows significantly after 3 weeks. At week 1 both beers were undrinkable but by week 3 they were drinkable, but the off flavor still nips at my tongue. I would think that off flavors from infection wouldn't subside so quickly, would they?

After this happened with the Saison I just thought that the beer was green and the green flavor just wasn't noticeable until the beer carbed up a bit. I bottled the Saison early (it was my 3rd batch so I still hadn't learned my lesson at that point) but the IPA was in secondary for 3 weeks so it shouldn't taste green. At the same time, I did a 1.045 brown ale that was in primary 1 week and secondary for 2 weeks and after 7 days in the bottle it was fantastic.

Keep in mind that when bottle conditioning you are starting the fermentation process all over. So even if your beer has aged for 3 months, after adding priming sugar, your beer is green once again.

Dishwashers are inconsistent in their spray patterns and may leave soap inside the bottle. this is further dried on in the high heat cycle and may not be so easily removed with the star san soak.
You may be over thinking it.
Try just a soak in oxyclean free and the store upside down untill you sanitize them.
30 seconds is fine at proper dilution rates and you should fill when wet.

Good luck
Bull

+1

Dishwashers are fine if you don't use soap in them!!!check this out!! This is about cleaning glasses but clean is clean

Keep in mind that when bottle conditioning you are starting the fermentation process all over. So even if your beer has aged for 3 months, after adding priming sugar, your beer is green once again.

Yeah I've considered this as well but then I don't understand why the dark beers I've made haven't had this same problem. At first thought, I would say that the maltiness covers up the flavor but this off flavor I'm experiencing really dominates the beer flavor as a whole, no amount of malt flavor could cover it up. And this IPA is loaded with hops so if the flavor were able to be masked, I would think the hops would cover it up.

The only other thing that's different is that I haven't carbed my other beers to the same level as these two. I carbed my Saison to 3 volumes and this beer to 2.5 volumes. I don't know, I'm just going to take the advice you all have given and maybe brew the same recipe but carb to 2 volumes and see if that makes any difference.

I have brewed and bottled over 100 ales now and I just made two batches in a row with a similar off flavor that is also hard to describe. I'm really bummed right now. my process hasn't changed so I don't know what's going wrong. I feel for ya.

I have had an off flavor that is described very similarly to what you have. I believe it was from the bottles. Whether it be how I cleaned and sanitized the bottles I could never pin point the cause. When I finally started kegging, the flavor disappeared. I was so turned off by this flavor, every time I drink a homebrew and exhale, I try to see if I can taste it! It's very tough to describe the flavor... Maybe dirty ass mixed with diesel engine exhaust? Dunno, but I think it was coming from my bottles. I used to clean and sanitize my bottles the same as you. By chance do you use Italian made flip top bottles?

UPDATE: So after doing a lot of reading and thinking I started to suspect that maybe I over-carbed these two batches because, besides the fact that they are the only two non-dark beers that I've made, they're the only two that I've really aimed for a relatively high level of carbonation. I aimed for 2.5 volumes for this batch but I know I overshot it because my calculations were based on bottling 5 gallons and I didn't have a full 5 gallons (I knew that just didn't think it was a big deal) and the Saison I aimed for 3.0 volumes and made the same mistake.

I decided to crack open another one of the bottles today and I shook the **** out of it and once I poured it I swirled the glass around for 15 minutes straight until the beer was flat and warm. I then tasted it and - voilà - the off flavor that I've been trying to describe was much, much more subtle. It's there, but it's not nearly as predominant.

So the question now is, what is it? Carbonic acid? Is it some other flavor that's just not as noticeable in flat, warm beer? Is it actually being caused by my over-carbing or is it just the excess level of carbonation that makes it so predominant?

I have brewed and bottled over 100 ales now and I just made two batches in a row with a similar off flavor that is also hard to describe. I'm really bummed right now. my process hasn't changed so I don't know what's going wrong. I feel for ya.

Did you carb them at higher levels than normal? I'm thinking about entering this batch in a competition with the hopes that a certified judge will be able to tell me what it is because it's driving me nuts. I've made really, really good beers but this latest batch is awful. One of the main reasons I make beer is because I like to share it with friends and family but I would be embarrassed to have anyone taste this batch so it really sucks. Hopefully I can pinpoint the problem.